RoughRiders' rough season ends on sour note

CEDAR RAPIDS – Kind of fitting the way the season ended for the Cedar Rapids RoughRiders. Kind of motivating, too.

The U.S. National U-17 team scored the only two goals in a shootout to edge the RoughRiders in their final game of the USHL season, 3-2. Close, but not quite good enough.

Goes for this game and this season for Cedar Rapids, which finished with a 25-30-9 record and 59 points. That's a sixth-place finish in the Eastern Conference for a club that failed to make the playoffs for the first time since the inaugural 1999-2000 season.

"In this business, you're always looking at the future," said RoughRiders Coach Mark Carlson. "The end of the season is always hard, especially with this group. This ended up being a tremendous, tremendous group of character guys ... I'm proud of the group and how they came together."

There likely will be a lot of returning players for the RoughRiders, and they should find comfort in the way they fought to the end, picking up standings points in six of their final seven games. They also shouldn't have too many problems getting through their significant offseason work, considering they came up short in the playoff department.

Motivation, motivation, motivation.

"Every year you learn things," Carlson said. "Like I've said, we'd like to get better at everything we're doing."

Defenseman Scott Moldenhauer scored just his third goal of the season to open the scoring at the 8:33 mark of the first period. He let go with a shot from the right point that founds it way through traffic and into the top left corner of the net.

But Team USA took a stunning 2-1 lead to the third period by scoring a pair of goals just six seconds apart late in the second. Alex Tuch scored on a rebound at the 14:23 mark, Team USA won the ensuing faceoff, skated into the Cedar Rapids zone and got a go-ahead goal from Dylan Larkin at 14:29.

Boom, just like that.

The RoughRiders tied it just a minute into the third, however, when David Goodwin went five-hold on Team USA goalie Edwin Minney to convert a neat give-and-go play with Davey Middleton. It was the eighth goal for Goodwin as a Rider. He was acquired in a midseason trade with Green Bay and turned 21 late in the season.

Sonny Milano and defenseman Scott Savage beat Riders goaltender Chris Birdsall in the shootout. Minney, who improved his season record to just 2-18-2, stopped both Gerry Mayhew and Andrew Poturalski.

The RoughRiders have the USHL Futures Draft and Entry Draft coming up in May, followed by tryout camp later in the month.

"This spring and this summer is certainly going to dictate, for sure, what kind of seasons players have next year," Carlson said. "And what type of season our team has. We're going to be on top of that right away."

"Obviously we made some moves and things this year. But from early February on, this was just a tremendous group of guys. I think they all care about the team, they all want to get better, they're all coachable, they're all driven. So I'm really excited about all the guys who are coming back."